Now, I know it's not like me to devote time to MTP two weeks in a row, but he's got Ronna McDaniel, the Republican Party Chair , and he's also got author (and former FBI guy) Peter Strzok, so I couldn't pass it up.
Todd wasted no time with McDaniel, asking right off the bat whether we should view the president's comment about "not wanting to create a panic" through the lens of him not being "a president who shies away from trying to incite panic," and that he didn't want anyone to panic "because he's worried the virus hurts him politically."
McDaniel disagreed that he "took political calculations," a comment that's truly laughable, since every waking moment of his life is spent making political calculations. She referred to the China travel ban, and the Task Force (which we all watched Trump ignore or argue with on TV for weeks on end). She didn't mention him not letting the cruise ships dock, or his petty behavior towards blue state governors and the like, nor did she refer to his oft-repeated lies about the coronavirus being nothing, being a blip, going away, cases down to zero, harmless like the flu, and so on. But, she said,
... I think history will look back on him well as how he handled this pandemic.
Excuse me, waiter, "I'll have what she's having."
McDaniel said that 20/20 hindsight is perfect, and also pointed to changes in the science, and even that she "went and donated some masks to a local hospital, some N95 masks that I had at my home." And when Todd asked about the "direct correlation between the president not encouraging mask wearing and the fact that fewer Republicans wear masks than Independents or Democrats," she said
I don't think this is politically dividing at all. I wear masks. My kids wear masks. My husband wears a mask. This isn't a Republican or Democrat things, whether you wear a mask.
The fact that I can't find an image of her actually wearing one probably doesn't mean anything, right? And she insisted that the president is "willing to work with every governor, Democrat and Republican," except for when he said they weren't sucking up enough, or when he said he didn't want anyone talking to some of them (Washington's Jay Inslee comes to mind). She also said we have so many cases because we do more testing, blah blah blah. And, she said,
the president has led us through uncertain times with a Democrat party who's politicizing a time of crisis when usually people come together.
Um, here's the president not politicizing the coronavirus: "Liberate Minnesota!" "Liberate Michigan!" "Liberate Virginia..." And, McDaniel said "I don't know anything about that" when Todd asked about reports of HHS manipulation CDC recommendations and reports, but "Nancy Pelosi has called it the Trump virus" and that's the same, or something. And, truly the pinnacle of hypocrisy in this interview, here's her final comment.
Let's show the best of America. The president's willing to work with everyone. Why aren't Democrats passing a fourth stimulus bill? Why aren't they helping small businesses. Why aren't they working with this president?
I'm not sure how she missed that the president signed the fourth stimulus bill back in April or that the House passed the Heroes Act on May 15th. I can only surmised that must have been when she was busy donating those N95 masks she had lying around her house.
The segment with Peter Strzok, who's just published "Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump" started with Todd asking why Strzok believes the president is compromised. Strzok said he believed it back in 2016 and continues to believe now that Trump's compromised by the Russians.
And when I say that, I mean that they hold leverage over him that makes him incapable of placing the national interests, the national security, ahead of his own.
Strzok said that when they opened the investigation, they were "looking at a very discrete set of individuals" based on an allegation that "Russia had offered to coordinate the release of information to help the Trump campaign." Later, another case - "a very broad investigation" -was opened onto the president that included the question of whether or not the he had committed obstruction, but there was also a counterintelligence element,
It's looking first and foremost, what the Russians are trying to achieve and the way they're doing it. But that is very broad. And it certainly would include looking at the president's financial entanglements.
Todd asked about the different explanations about Trump and Russia, including the one we hear most often, that no one's been tougher on Russia than Trump, and whether any of that gave Strzok pause when the investigations were opened.
Strzok said "of course it did," and said that the issue isn't that Trump wanted to improve relations between our countries and "that's not the issue."
It's the lies, that time and time again, that he tells, that Russia also knows they can use over - leverage - with him.
He said they had multiple arguments about whether the investigations were the right thing to do.
But conclusively, the concerns we had about Russia were merited and it was the appropriate thing to do to look into them.
Strzok said that, given the facts, Trump "is surrounded by people who have a pervasive pattern of conduct with the Russians." And, he said, conduct that they're hiding.
It is not without exaggeration that there is no president in modern history who has the same broad and deep connections to any foreign intel service, let alone a hostile government like Russia.
He also said he didn't come to the 'no collusion' conclusion, and that while Mueller was looking for violations of the law, that's a different standard than an intelligence person would use. And, between the Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Committee report
laying out all of these areas of intelligence connections between the Trump and his administration and his campaign and Russia, that's extraordinarily concerning from a counterintelligence perspective...
On whether he thought he put himself in a compromising position (his affair with Lisa Page) or if he was unfairly singled out, he said he regretted that the text messages we heard so much about were "used to bludgeon the work of the FBI, the work of the special counsel." The weaponization of the texts was "unprecedented" and it too was part of pattern of activity of the administration,
...if somebody dares speak the truth about this administration, this administration has shown no boundaries in going after people in ways that, frankly, is shocking, are shocking and are inappropriate.
And, he said, having an AG saying, day after day, that there was no reason to open the investigations back in 2016, "which is demonstrably ludicrous" has to have a chilling effect "not only on the FBI but all the branches and departments of the executive branch of the government."
And he added
... I am deeply concerned though what another four years of President Trump will do to destroy the traditional independence and objectivity of our government.
As are many of us. See you around the virtual campus.
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